Friday morning we left for Granada – our train left at 7 which meant my alarm going off at 5:20, an hour at which most Spaniards are still awake from the night before...
The train to Granada was not an AVE train, which we’ve taken on our previous trips – so the ride was not as smooth, and the interior lighting was somewhat cafeteria-room like. I got maybe an hour worth of bad sleep before arriving in Granada around 10:30. We stopped at a café by the train station to get some coffee and refuel before our hike to the hotel (which was a not-too-shabby four star hotel downtown, I should add)
Granada is a cool city - I love the snow covered mountains in the background. The city itself didn’t have anything too remarkably special, aside from a pretty delicious ice cream place we stopped at and a kebab restaurant I ate at twice (I love those things.)
But, what Granda does have to offer, is the Alhambra, which does not disappoint.
The first night we climbed up to St. Nicholas square in the Albaicin district at sundown where there is a gorgeous view of the Ahlambra and the city. This is the view from which Bill Clinton is quoted as having said this is the best sunset in the world – and I would have to agree with him, it’s quite impressive.
The next morning, after an awesome buffet breakfast at the hotel, we had a guided tour of the Alhambra itself. Muslim palaces are a little different than the typical “palace” you would imagine, so its easy to walk through this and not get the impression of lavishness or royalty - but once you get an understanding of what it used to be and how splendid and ornate everything was decorated – it’s really impressive to walk through. Ignacio, our tour guide, was describing how the inside of the palaces used to look and it really impressed me. That, and the view that it gave of the city and the mountains, made it one of my favorite places I’ve seen in Spain so far.
I’m always really glad to visit these places after I’ve learned all about them in my Spanish Art History class, it just makes both the class and the traveling so much more rewarding. Walking through a Muslim palace and city and recognizing all of the typical architecture and decoration is pretty fun to do. I also love taking this type of class here in Spain. If I learned about horseshoe arches and then saw one in the US I would never think it was authentic, but here - if you see one, it was likely built by Muslims in the 8th-15th century...crazy.
The rest of the day (which wasn’t too much after a really long tour and a relaxed lunch), we walked around and did a little shopping. I was beyond exhausted so a few of us went to a nearby café and sat around and talked until it was time to meet back at the hotel to leave on our train. It was after midnight when we got back to Sevilla, and yet the metro was stuffed and we had to catch the next one to get back home…only in Spain.
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